Value of a Point - Part 3: Season Choice Matters!

In part two I addressed how your weapon selection can affect the value of your bonus point, with archery providing you the highest value. For both residents and non-residents in virtually all cases the any weapon (rifle) hunts provided the lowest value however especially in the Utah LE elk drawing there are several options that can increase the value of a bonus point even within the rifle hunt options. I will focus the rifle elk because the other limited entry and once-in-a-lifetime hunts don’t have early, middle, late, and multi-season options.

The early rifle season is the most popular option in the state of Utah, the opportunity to hunt big bull elk with your favorite centerfire rifle during the elk rut is often the experience craved by big game hunters. It’s a marvelous opportunity, I helped my grandfather in 2014 on an early any weapon bull elk tag and we had a great time. However, it took many years of unsuccessful applications and a pretty handsome pile of bonus points to draw the tag. I’m not certain whether he drew a guaranteed tag or a random tag because the year that he applied and drew about half of his point group drew the guaranteed tag as highest point holders and another handful of the point pool drew random tags… either way, he had a tag in his pocket and we went hunting.

The middle rifle season is a new addition as of the last couple years. This season coincides with the general rifle hunt and in my opinion is a great option for a large family camp with numerous tags in camp since spike tags can be had over the counter. The number of units where these hunts are available are limited so we’ll continue to learn about these middle season hunts over the next couple years.

The late season is a great option and generally occurs the middle part of November. Virtually all units that have an early rifle hunt also have a late rifle hunt. There is also a multi-season premium option that affords the tag holder to hunt during any open season date with the weapon associated with that season date.

So if you’d prefer to hunt with your rifle let’s look at how choosing between the early, middle, late, and multi-season options impacts the value of your bonus point.

Weapon Type	Utah Resident	Utah Non-Resident
Early Any Weapon	0.525%	0.413%
Middle Any Weapon	1.702%	1.496%
Late Any Weapon	1.666%	1.170%
Multi-Season	0.240%	0.230%

In terms of the early, middle, and late seasons… the middle and late season provide roughly the same value, which happens to be about 3x that of the early rifle hunt for both residents and non-residents.

For most applicants the real key in this choice is the opportunity to chase bulls during the rut with the early any weapon hunt. If that’s the experience you desire, the key in my opinion is having realistic expectations in terms of when you will draw the tag. For many of these hunts be prepared for potentially a multi-decade period of unsuccessful applications prior to drawing the tag. In fact, on my spreadsheets I have a pair of columns titled “Years to Draw” that indicate the number of years it will take for you to reach the highest bonus point pool based upon the previous year application pool… in the most popular units this can be a disheartening thing to see.

Multi-season hunts are a unique situation because of the few number of tags offered so it’s understandable that the value of a point for these types of hunts is really, really low.

If you are looking to maximize the value of your bonus point and would prefer to hunt with the centerfire rifle I would definitely consider the middle or late season options… especially as we learn more about and gain more experience with the new middle season hunts. I know I will be keeping a close eye on how the drawing odds play out with these middle season hunts.

Value of a Point - Part 2: Weapon Choice Matters!

So what are the factors or variables within the “micro” environment that have the greatest impact on the value of the bonus point?
The limited entry elk application pool has the most factors/variables so we’ll spend most of our time discussing the concept of “value of a point” related to the Utah LE elk drawing. I’ll also do my best to provide information for both the resident and non-resident. You have a number of different weapon types to choose from (e.g. archery, any weapon, and muzzleloader)… that’s the easy one to identify first. Secondarily, you also have multiple choices within the any weapon hunts with early, middle, late, multi-season options and CWMU options for Utah residents.

In this second post let’s discuss how the value of a point is different between the different legal weapon types… archery, any weapon, and muzzleloader. Within the any weapon option there are multiple seasons… but I want to save that for the third post so I’m going to consider all the any weapon season (early, middle, and late) in the any weapon category for right now and I’m also going to exclude the multi-season and CWMU options in this discussion.

This table shows the average value of a point (the percentage by which each point increases your chances of drawing one of the random draw tags) for the three primary legal weapon types in Utah for LE elk:

Weapon Type	Utah Resident	Utah Non-Resident
Archery	3.746%	2.800%
Any Weapon	1.109%	0.800%
Muzzleloader	1.745%	2.600%

For both residents and non-residents choosing to apply for an archery tag provides you with the highest value of your bonus points… short and simple, archery tags are easier to draw than any weapon and muzzleloader tag. In fact, as a Utah resident, if I were to apply for an any weapon tag it would take 3.4 bonus points to achieve the same value as one bonus point if I were to apply for an archery tag. It is similar for non-residents, it would take 3.5 bonus points in any weapon to achieve the same value as one bonus point in archery.

Interestingly to me, the muzzleloader option for non-residents provides virtually equal value as the archery option. If I were a non-resident and looking to maximize the value of my points but uncomfortable with archery equipment, I would be seriously looking at the LE elk muzzleloader option instead of any weapon.

On the individual species pages I also mention a concept that I call “Year Savings”… the way Utah’s LE and OIAL drawings are set up one-half of the tags are guaranteed to the applicants with the highest number of points for that particular unit. For Utah residents, on average an archery tag can be guaranteed at 6.6 points, an early rifle tag at 15.8 points, and a muzzleloader tag at 11.9 points. The trends typically hold quite well that an archery tag can be guaranteed ~9 years sooner than a rifle tag and ~5 years sooner than a muzzleloader tag. Let’s look at a specific example in a middle of the pack type unit… say the Central Mountains, Manti unit. For 2018 I am projecting 4.6 points for the archery, 15.0 points for early rifle, 10.7 points for muzzleloader, and 12.0 points for the late rifle. Just looking at these numbers at face value one could realistically draw the archery tag, endure the 5 year wait period, and draw a second archery tag prior to drawing the early any weapon tag once. This has definitely changed my view on the current drawing environment. My current plan right now is to draw a muzzleloader tag, however when I’m able to apply for elk again I’m definitely considering applying for archery so that I won’t have to wait as long between tags. And notice the difference between the early and late season rifle hunts… we’ll discuss the different options available for the hunter who prefers his rifle in the next part.

On many of the forums that I visit there seems to be an almost overwhelming movement to “burn points” and have more opportunities to hunt rather than to wait year after year for that one highly coveted premium unit hunt… I tend to share that opinion and looking at variables like weapon type helps me see that if I choose to hunt with archery or a muzzleloader I can theoretically have an increased chance at drawing a tag and therefore have more opportunities to be in the field with a LE elk tag.

Value of a Point

I have an entire page on this blog dedicated to what I call “Value of a Point.” Many times throughout the years as I have frequented a random handful of hunting forums I have come across questions asking what bonus points are worth, how much they increase odds of drawing, or something similar. Questions like that led me to see if the actual value of a bonus point could be quantified… and without too much trouble I found that it could. I also found that bonus points could be assigned two different values based upon a “macro” or “micro” definition. Macro means considering the value of the bonus point relative to the entirety of the applicant pool, and micro means considering the value of the bonus point relative to the individual hunt unit. I have found that the easiest way to represent this value is to express it as a percentage, so the value is that each point increases your chances of drawing by “X” percent.
For example, I’m sitting on a pile of elk points… the macro value of my bonus points considers the entire applicant pool for elk while the micro value considers the smaller applicant pool in the unit that I’m applying for. Out of the 49,762 resident applicants in the 2017 Utah drawing, each point I have increased my chances of drawing an elk tag by 0.432%. Now let’s suppose that for 2017 I applied for the San Juan early any weapon hunt. With 1923 applicants for only 20 tags, and taking the number of bonus that the other applicants for that same hunt have, the micro value of my bonus points ends up being 0.055%. Whoa… wait a minute… the value of my bonus points was reduced from a macro value of 0.432% to a micro value of 0.055% just based upon the unit that I selected?!? That is absolutely correct! Consider instead that I applied for the Paunsaugunt early any weapon tag… a tag with only a fraction of the demand compared to the San Juan early rifle tag. The macro value remains the same at 0.432%, but the micro value of my bonus points increases to 1.592%. Nothing changed in my bonus points… but how I choose to utilize them in the application cycle (i.e. the unit that I select) dramatically changes their value.
Since the “macro” value is static and will not change, over the next couple posts let’s take a look at some of the “micro” factors that affect the value of bonus points.

Public Land Conservation - My Maiden Voyage

Last July I threw a Hail Mary…
Early July 2016 my brother sent me a link to a real estate listing for a 2000 acre parcel sandwiched between the landowner association where my family has a couple cabins and a Wildlife Management Area here in northern Utah. This was a parcel that for many, many years I had access to hunt through a second landowner association that my family held a share in. Legal proceedings had been ongoing for several years due to the majority shareholder wanting to break away from the minority shareholders and with those legal proceedings finalizing earlier in 2016, the writing was on the wall and I would lose access to hunt that property. I would also lose access to the more remote reaches of that WMA… and selfishly, some of my favorite spots to hunt would become exponentially more difficult to access. I had always known that once the legal proceedings were finalized this would unfortunately be the case.
I decided that I would reach out to the state and the DWR because since I didn’t have a cool $3 million in cash just laying around that having the state buy the land and incorporate it into the current WMA was the easiest (and probably only) way for me to ever gain access to those places that I had hunted for years. I sent the DWR an email through their general comment/contact email address and got no response. I’ll have to admit that after a couple days frustration began to build with not getting even an acknowledgement that somebody had seen the email and I would dare say even a little panic set in.
I decided to get a bigger hammer… I needed somebody with a little more sway and clout when it came to the politics to help me. I don’t know anybody personally with that kind of influence so I decided to reach out to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation because from my experience they appeared to be one of the more reputable (my opinion) conservation organizations in the current environment. From their website I found the contact information for several members of their leadership and I sent them virtually the same email that just days before I sent to the DWR. Within two hours I received a response from the Senior Lands Program Manager (Mr. Hammond). He requested some additional information from me and I shared everything I had with him.
The fall hunts came and went, and for the first time hunting from the family cabin there were areas of the mountain that were posted “No Trespassing” and as I mentioned before, many of my favorite spots were off limits. It was frustrating to look and see game in areas where in previous years I would have given chase but now was off limits. I had a muzzleloader deer, general muzzleloader elk, and a late season cow elk tag for the unit and by the end of the season I was discouraged trying to navigate these new boundaries.
I didn’t give much thought to my previous contact with the guys at RMEF until after the Utah application period had ended and the prospect of a second year with the same hurdles weighed on my mind. I reached out again to Mr. Hammond and the next day I received an email from him stating that he had spoken with a member of the DWR and the state was working to acquire the property. It was definitely an unexpected response, and I immediately tried to get in contact with somebody in the DWR with any knowledge of the situation.
I eventually obtained the contact information for the Land & Water Assets Manager for the DWR (Mr. Hansen) and arranged to have a phone call with him. On the call I introduced myself and he said, “Ah, the guy responsible for all this…” He told me of the process that the state went through, that there were four properties that had the state’s attention and that after several presentations and committee meetings that this property had received almost unanimous approval for a proposal to purchase. There were still a few hurdles yet remaining but he was hopeful that the sale would close by the end of April 2017.
The end of April came and went with the closing being delayed due to a change in the application process for grant monies. The funding for the purchase of this land would largely come from Pittman-Robertson Funds which are taxes collected on sales of rifles and ammunition (at least in part), and with the change over to the Trump administration there were new requirements to be met before funding could be granted. Mr. Hansen asked that I reach out to the landowner association members and request that they send him letters in support of the purchase. These letters would be included in the closing packet and reviewed by the governor prior to him officially signing the closing documents.
From the end of April, through May and June I continued to reach out to landowners and request their support. I continued to correspond with Mr. Hansen regularly as he negotiated new and unexpected hurdles. I was extremely optimistic but realized just how quickly navigating the political labyrinth of the government can sap that optimism and by the end of June I was honestly doubtful that the purchase would ever get closed.
On July 5th I received an email from Mr. Hansen that said, “I wanted to drop you a note and let you know that DWR's effort to purchase the (parcel) as part of the Wildlife Management Area was successful the latter part of last week. Thank you very much for your support and the support of your friends and neighbors; it very much made a difference.”
It is still difficult to describe the magnitude of the emotions that I felt when I read that. Of course I texted everyone that I knew the news and many of the responses were congratulatory in nature. I felt foolish in taking credit for any of it because the whole idea originated from a fit of selfishness in losing access to some of “my hunting spots”… and so much of the actual heavy lifting was done by Mr. Hansen and others. I am grateful for the initial efforts of the RMEF group. I feel that they were instrumental in getting the ball rolling and at minimum getting the DWR to initially consider the proposal. I am extremely grateful for the efforts of Mr. Hansen at the Utah DWR, the hurdles and red tape that he negotiated with the administration changes and acquiring the funding was no small task. We owe him a debt of gratitude for the countless hours and late nights (I spoke with him a number of times on the phone late in the evening and he was still at the office).
I am happy to have played a role in the acquisition of 2000 acres of now public hunting area that was previously privately controlled. It is beautiful country that I am proud to say is now open to any and all who desire to recreate on it. Personally, I cannot wait to hunt it again (and forever in the future) after being unable to last year.


Here are some images from the parcel that was purchased:

2018 Projections Updated...

Friends, the updated spreadsheet is now available via the link on the left sidebar. All 2017 data has been entered and the 2018 projections are calculated. There will be one more update to the spreadsheet... the Utah DWR provided a separate report for general buck deer youth applicants and I have yet to determine how to present that data. I'm open to suggestions as to how to do this... but like the change that I made to the spreadsheet format a couple years ago when I combined the resident and non-resident data onto one page for each species, I'd very much like to have this new youth data be easily sortable and filterable side-by-side with the resident and non-resident data because I know that parents (or other responsible/trusted adults) are largely responsible for the applications of youth hunters so I want to make the data easily comparable from the youth draws to general draws without making the sheet any more overwhelming than it already is... so stay tuned for that update sometime in the future.

The 2017 spreadsheet was a great success and I have received numerous emails and messages from hunters who have found the information and data useful in how they have formulated their individual and group application strategies. I hope that you find the 2018 projections equally as valuable in researching and preparing for your future hunts.

Thank you!!!